Have to be honest, its the picture that drew me in. The one shrimp, dripping with the sauce. Heavenly.
I mean seriously... how good does that look? I've never made roasted garlic before, because for some reason I thought it took a lot of work. I don't know why, because I was completely wrong. Super simple. The hardest part is knowing how long to roast it. The recipe says 10 minutes at 400 degrees, and didn't say anything about wrapping it in foil. 10 minutes wasn't even close to long enough. And I've seen chefs on the Food Network wrap it in foil, so I did that... and kept it in the oven for 30 minutes. One thing I will say, listen to the recipe when it says to let the garlic cool a little before using. I was super hungry and didn't wait, and almost burned myself. I ended up using a spoon to get the garlic out of the paper.
Wow, roasted garlic is awesome. None of that bitter, sharp harsh taste. Its creamy, soft, and has a great flavor. You could really eat it on its own. But that would be kind of weird.
I have this bad habit of always using way too much fresh herbs, especially cilantro and basil. So consequently, I used too much olive oil this time to compensate. The recipe calls for chili sauce. I have both sweet chili sauce and hot chili garlic sauce. I used mostly sweet, with just a tiny bit of hot for a kick.
To make it a complete meal, I did a veggie stir-fry of carrots, celery, asparagus, beans and zucchini. And some rice. The recipe calls for the shrimp to be grilled. But since I did the veggies, it makes more sense to do the shrimp in the same pan, for one less pan to clean.
The sauce was absolutely amazing. I tried a little of it on its own before mixing with everything else and was blown away. The garlic, even though I used almost half the head, wasn't overpowering at all. The sweet chili sauce complemented the sauce really well. I didn't taste heat at all. Next time I may use a little more. I'll definitely cut back on both the cilantro and the oil.
As I was eating, I thought this sauce would be wonderful as a dip for crusty bread. Or to marinate tomatoes and mozzarella. I'm sure it would work well with other things too. It just has so much flavor.
You don't even have to ask if I'm making this again. You can count on it.
